Obamacare: Fundamentally Bad Design, Website Included

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Loren Heal :

The technical problems with the implementation of the (Abdominable) Affordable Care Act are becoming the stuff of legend. The entire thing should be rebuilt. But that will not save the ACA, because the underlying policies and political pressures that have caused the problems are even worse than the systems so far created to deliver it.

As Twitchy notes, the ACA continues to reap a bitter harvest. But the real problems of the law may come later. Even if the technical issues can eventually be worked out, because the policy errors and economic misconceptions driving it can never be worked out.

There are two areas of abject failure in the ACA system implementation: the “front end” and the “back end.” Sharp readers will note there is nothing else left to fail.

The front end is the web site and systems used to communicate with the user. The back end consists of dozens of interlocking computer and communications systems among government agencies and their crony industry partners, reaching even into the examination room. Both the front and back ends are disasters, and both disasters are driven by the structure of the ACA itself.

The Front End

The front end has drawn much of the attention so far, and is not ready even though Health and Human Services officials said it would be:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/T4ycS-oZWn4[/youtube]

Initially, users were forced to create accounts before doing any shopping. HHS released a tool to let people see the prices in their area, but to see subsidy qualification they still have to create an account.

The account creation process is filled with problems all of its own.

This is Not How It’s Done. Users of amazon.com or travelocity.com do not have to do that. Those sites know that account creation drives away users while slowing down the system, especially the part of the system used to register new users.

Healthcare.gov seems to be more optimized for collecting Social Security numbers than in connecting people with the right insurance products. And the accounts appear to be permanent, with no facility in place to let users delete them.

Industry observers say, and the compressed timelines attest, that nobody tested it. Because of the political need to open October 1 (resulting from the partisan nature of the law’s origin), testing was not done.

Experts said the decision to require that consumers create online accounts before they can browse available health plans appears to have led to many of the program’s technical problems. Consumers trying to create their accounts multiplied the volume of online transactions that have overwhelmed the website.

The White House suggested they simply needed to improved the consumer experience. The incredible departure from best practices of the omission of testing can’t be overstated.

The Back End

Health insurance expert Bob Laszewski says that only 5,000 people have signed up for insurance through the federal exchange. While the numbers are bad, the behind-the-scenes picture may be worse:

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It appears they didn’t do much shopping around in getting a company to do the work.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537194#.UlvHPWwQRGk.twitter

And Obama is a “fundamentally bad design,” . . .
The Threat We Face by David Horowitz

Do not make the mistake of thinking that progressives and conservatives are people who merely differ about practical agendas. There are four defining features of the left, which distinguish it as a movement of individuals who approach politics quite differently from pragmatically-minded conservatives.

The first of these features is their alienation from country: If you ask progressives about their patriotic feeling, they will tell you that they don’t think of themselves first as Americans but as “citizens of the world.” That even has a Harvard imprimatur. They are, in fact, so profoundly alienated from their country as to be in some sense foreigners to it. They are hostile to its history and to its core values, which they see as reflections of a society that has been guilty of racism and oppression on an epic scale. And they are fundamentally opposed to its constitutional arrangements which the framers specifically designed to thwart what they deemed “wicked projects” to redistribute income and share individual wealth.

This is perhaps the hardest feature of their progressive adversaries for conservatives to comprehend. It is difficult to imagine that people as privileged by America’s generosity as Barack Obama and his entourage of despoilers should be so alienated from their country as to feel themselves in it but not of it. And there is no more shocking example of this than Benghazi. No matter what your politics, or what solutions you propose to the problems that confront this nation, ask yourself this: Could you have done what Barack Obama did that night? Could you as commander-in-chief abandon three Americans fighting for their lives under your command? These men had served their country for more than a decade. For seven hours they cried out for help from their government, but you refused to give it.

How could an American commander-in-chief then put himself in a position to be snubbed by the Iranian Hitlerites, which is what they are, and which is what Obama did? How could he snub our Israeli allies and at the same time grovel before our Islamic enemies? But he did. How could he create a vacuum in the Middle East allowing Russia to become the new regional power? How could he make himself an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, which slaughters Christians, and promises the extermination of the Jews and spawns terrorist armies like al-Qaeda and Hamas?

The answer to all these questions is that Obama doesn’t identify with our country. He sees himself as a “citizen of the world,” and a redresser of grievances for the suffering he imagines America has inflicted on our adversaries, including Hitlerite Iran.

Obamacare is simply a giant step into socialism/communism.

@Mully: I am sure the contractor was carefully selected from a list of Obama donors/cronies. (Community organizers do not have to have experience to be selected for a job!)

@Randy:

That’s sort of a thought I had but have no real evidence of it.. My thinking goes back to not only the stimulus but the many solar and battery companies, call it green energy if you like, that got money from the gov’t. They went belly up as you may recall. These enterprises had friendly management to the Obama folks. So some of the incoming money would make a U turn and head back out in the form of political contributions to the DNC and the like. When the obamacare experience failed so badly I wondered if the same thing had happened.

I like the “line” that the White House suggests there is a need to improve the “Consumer Experience” WTF?!? There is no “Consumer Experience” – We are FORCED INTO DOING THIS…REMEMBER?!?!? Ass Hats to infinity….

Yea, leave it to the Gubberment to make things “better”…

I heard Jay Carney said the Computer Programmers who ‘designed’ and implemented the system should be fired….I say Fire them….and perhaps no one will take their places then it’s done. Wouldn’t THAT be a hoot!

One of the ObamaCare ”navigators” has been arrested on outstanding warrants.
In Kansas.
Seems Obama’s idea of never running background checks so he can hire all races equally is backfiring…..in this case it was a white women.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/14/obamacare-navigator-in-kansas-has-outstanding-arrest-warrant/

Who’da thought?….LOl!

Obamacare Struggles Worse In States That Resisted It

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/republicans-shutdown-poll_n_4098496.html

@#6 – This really frustrates me…and should frustrate every American!!
Uh, “We’re the Gubberment…and we are here to help”??!!?? OMG!!

We are always being warned about giving personal information over the Phone to unsolicited “marketers” and fraudsters….now we are FORCED to hand over information to likes of this….

This Government is a dam Joke…when are we going to wake up from this nightmare??!!??

@#7 – So what’s your point?

@This one: That is because Obamacare law requires the federal government to operate the exchanges dim wit!

For those concerned about their privacy have a look at this.

Buried in the source code of Healthcare.gov is this sentence that could prove embarrassing: “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.” Though not visible to users and obviously not intended as part of the terms and conditions, the language is nevertheless a part of the underlying code for the “Terms & Conditions” page on the site.

After creating an account on Healthcare.gov, users are asked to click an “I accept” button under some routine Terms & Conditions prohibiting unauthorized attempts to upload information or change the website. Once users click the button, they may proceed to shop for insurance and enter detailed personal information. However, when the Terms & Conditions page is visible, the hidden sentence mentioned above along with several others can be seen by using a web browser’s “View Source” feature. A screen grab below shows the visible Terms & Conditions page along with a simultaneous view of the code underlying it.

I pulled that from http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-website-source-code-no-reasonable-expectation-privacy_762489.html

@Mully:
I have the code, so I looked for what you posted. And there it is. I don’t see anything that would mask it from being displayed though. Maybe they changed it at launch.

resources[‘ffe.ee.myAccount.logInTerms.description4’] = ‘You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.’; resources[‘ffe.ee.myAccount.logInTerms.description3’] = ‘To continue, you must accept the terms and conditions. If you decline, your login will automatically be cancelled.’;

@This one: Most articles about the failure of the ObamaCare roll out are about the states using FEDERALLY run exchanges anyway.
States, like Utah, already had their own exchange YEARS ago.
Obama dragged his feet about approving many of these state run exchanges, but it is good for his bottom numbers that he finally did.
5,000 may have signed up in all the federal exchanges over its first week.
25,000 signed up on STATE run ones!
Why the huge difference?
Because many of the states committed to building out their exchanges years ago, and came up with a much more tightly focused product.
In Utah’s case their exchange was claimed not to be right for ObamaCare.
Then, without a change whatsoever, at the last minute, Obama said Utah’s plan was OK.

@This one:
Huffpo is completely unreliable as it is a cheerleader for marxism. You are a disgusting fool who will get exactly what you deserve under obamacare.
Have you enrolled yet? If not, why are you still supporting this abomination? Are you just a hypocritical leftist scumbag?